1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of apparatus for the production of oscillatory motion. More specifically, this invention is in the field of apparatus capable of providing oscillatory motion of varying magnitude and nature, and adjustable to provide any combination of linear and pendulum oscillatory motion.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are known in the mechanical art various means of imparting oscillatory motion to devices such as tools, machine components and the like, and means for multiplying or apportioning magnitude and direction of force to devices. Among such means are included levers, pulleys, and inclined planes in the category of simple machines, and more complicated methods of achieving some of the same results, including motors with bidirectional capability, gear trains, and shafts having bidirectional threads and reciprocating followers, where the shaft is driven in one rotational direction and the follower provides a linear reciprocating action.
In the field of automatic welding, for instance, it is often necessary to weld a relatively wide seam, i.e., one where the width of the seam to be welded is more than about three or four times the diameter of the filler wire used. In such cases, it is currently necessary to effect the weld by multiple passes, that is, by causing the welding torch to weld a plurality of seams, disposed such that each seam is contiguous with and fused to the base metal or a preceding seam, or both. However, it is more economical to effect such a weld in one pass, thereby reducing the time involved with both the machine and the operator. At the present time, there is no realistically economical method of effecting such a single-pass weld.
In other fields, such as machining, it is sometimes desirable to apply a tool to a part in other than a direct linear fashion. Such operations are required, e.g., where a cam is being machined on a lathe or milling machine, and the surface of the cam is not an arc of a circle; the application of the tool would then require that the tool be moved in correlation with the movement of the part by the machine. In the alternative, various interconnecting gear arrangements are used to provide movement of the tool in relation to the movement of the part by the machine.